


The Perfect Show of Force

by Beguile



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Bathing, Bondage, Breathplay, But First the Self-Loathing, Cuddling & Snuggling, Explicit Language, Fluff and Smut, Frank can't handle feelings, M/M, Matt is a Bratty Sub, Neither of them can communicate, Sarcasm, Senses, Sexual Imagery, aftercare (eventually), knots, unsafe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 01:41:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15402186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beguile/pseuds/Beguile
Summary: The ropes on his wrists and ankles tied with constrictor knots, which would be fun if, you know, someone were there to loosen them. But Matt’s gone and run his damn mouth, so Frank left him in a rather compromising position.It’s okay, though, because Frank’s coming back. Right?





	The Perfect Show of Force

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> Warnings: Explicit language and sexual imagery. Unsafe BDSM. Breathplay gone bad. 
> 
> I wanted something soft, so I wrote something soft. Well, it has a soft ending. I’m a whumper first and forever. 
> 
> Enjoy!

* * *

 

               The ropes on his wrists and ankles tied with constrictor knots, which would be fun if, you know, someone were there to loosen them. As it stands, his fingers are starting to tingle from the loss of circulation, and his feet are going cold, and maybe he shouldn’t have tugged so damn hard. He might have known the ropes wouldn’t break, that the knots wouldn’t give, that he wasn’t simply strung up between the bed posts but restrained with purpose, with design.

               He has a strap around his neck, one that was, at the start of this little adventure, just tight enough to slow his breathing, but it’s starting to cut against his Adam’s apple now unless he holds his head just so – nocked back over the headboard at a forty-five degree angle, a position that heats the space between his shoulder blades and will soon become a steady burn.

               Foggy would ask why he isn’t panicking. Strange how Foggy’s voice finds him here, a position and place that he would never admit, never reveal, one he’s not sure Foggy would believe even if he told him. No one would fault him for being a little afraid. He’s strung up in knots he can’t break with strained limbs and weakening circulation. He’s being slowly strangled. And the guy who did this – the guy he _let_ do this, the guy he _encouraged_ to do it with smartass remarks and _oh, God, please_ -s, the guy who probably would have stopped if he had just said no, which should have been the first word out of his mouth before he ended up with a dick inside him – _that guy_ shows no sign of coming back any time soon, if at all.

               And no one else knows where he is.

               All of this plays through Matt’s brain in Foggy’s best impression of a disappointed parent, undercut occasionally with Stick’s snide remarks and verbal eyerolls about why the fuck the stuff of Spartan’s is spread eagle and buck naked on a bed like a common whore. Worse, actually, Stick says, because at least whores get paid.

               Matt ignores them both…mostly. He isn’t going to be left for dead. Eventually, Frank is going to come back. Frank always comes back. And so long as he, Matt, keeps his damn mouth shut long enough, the ropes’ll come off and he’ll be sent on his merry way. Until the next time Frank comes to town, of course, at which point their rooftop fistfight will turn into a violent make-out session will turn into a silent trip across town to a safehouse will turn into Matt strapped to a bed while Frank fucks him in two.

               God, it’s not like he proposed marriage. He didn’t come in the vicinity of the word ‘relationship’ because _that’s not what this is_ and though neither of them know what hell this is, they both know it’s not that. Matt made one throwaway comment, something ridiculous, a barb, something that would crawl under Frank’s skin, get him hotter and bothered-er. Something that just had to be said while Frank was inside him because he doesn’t have a lot of options available. And there’s no better time to rib Frank than when Frank is inside him. That’s as much a thing as their inevitable post-firefight fucking.

               One sarcastic remark. That’s it. And the ensuing fight – if a few yelled monosyllables and stern finger-pointing could even be called a fight for them – ended swiftly with Frank yanking his dick out, throwing on some clothes, and storming off. Matt tries to calculate how long ago that was, but there’s no sense of time in the safehouse. There never is. He measures time in pain and inches, in the looseness of his muscles, in how many times they finish on each other, on how many of his holes get filled. He’s literally too fucked up other times to measure the loss of circulation in his hands and feet, to pay attention to the strain in his back and neck, to use those as gauges for how much time has passed.

               Time doesn’t matter, either, Matt reminds himself. Frank’s coming back. He’s coming back.

               _He might,_ Foggy concedes, and there’s a but coming that Matt can’t stop, _but he might call the cops_.

               Matt tugs against the strap on his neck, choking himself until his thoughts are a starry night sky. When he releases, the burn between his shoulders has gotten worse. He tries to pull his back straight but the bonds on his ankles tighten, drawing more blood.

               Stick finds him then: _Then you’re what - gonna let him fuck you a little harder this time._

               “Fuck off,” Matt mutters, using the slickness of his wrists to try and free his hands. The knots pulls tighter, and it’s good, it’s good, he can’t hear Stick from their screaming. But now he’s lost feeling in his fingertips and the blood heads straight for his stupid dick – shit. He’s getting hard because he can’t move. He can’t break free. Frank tied him up, and he likes being tied up. He likes being fucked. He likes taking it. He’s so easy, so fucking easy that get gets off on a couple of ropes and a little bit of blood. Doesn’t even need Frank. And when he comes back ( _Frank’s coming back_ ), Matt’s going to have to face him like this, tied to the fucking bed with a raging hard-on, desperate and needy and easy. And who knows how long Frank’ll leave him like this, how long Frank’ll be gone and how long Frank’ll keep him upon return and _God damn it_ Matt’s blood runs hot and cold at the thought of being kept. They’ve played games like this before, hours where Matt’s on the edge. Frank swings him like a yo-yo in and out of senselessness – _stop thinking about it_ – with touch, with teeth – _stop_ – with tight ropes and blades, some pain but the beautiful kind, the kind Matt survives – _STOP_ – and needs – _STOP!_ – and spends his nights searching for.

               Matt lets out a gasp of frustration. Frank’s safehouses are pretty soundproofed, and he can’t hear anyone close-by, but the only thing worse than Frank coming back would be a curious passerby or the damn cops. Naked blind dude strapped to a bed surrounded by Punisher shit. Fuck, he has to get out of here. He has to. He starts working at one wrist, then the other, his ankles. He tugs his neck against the strap, hard, crushing his windpipe but it’ll break, it’ll break, come on. Break.

               When all that fails, he just starts thrashing.

* * *

                He wakes up with a desperate gasp of air, the strap in his neck choking him when his head’s flopped forward. His head aches and his mouth’s dry and there’s fresh copper scent coming from his wrists and ankles; he can’t have been out for more than a couple minutes, right? Not with the safehouse still so empty, with Frank still being gone?

               Matt winces as he stretches his neck so he can breathe. His back strains against the position he was never meant to hold, abdominals straining to carry some of the weight. Frank offered him a pillow; well, Frank tried to put one under him, but Matt likes the work. He’s working now, alright.

               He gets lost in another Stick diatribe about his weaknesses. How he follows his dick instead of common sense (though exhaustion seems to have finally gotten his groin to settle the fuck down, a thought Matt doesn’t entertain because he doesn’t want to tempt himself again). Inner-Stick isn’t wrong. He did this with Elektra, too. Let her tie strings to his wrists and ankles, make him dance, make him take – oh, who the fuck is he kidding. No one makes him do anything. He got down on all fours and let her stick her hand up inside him like a puppet because he likes himself best when he’s full of someone else.

* * *

               The house creaks around him. Matt follows the sound down, down.

               He snaps his head back up, blinking hard, gasping. His back burns, and he wants to sleep, but dropping his head forward causes the strap at his neck to cut into his windpipe. And the ragged tug of breath when he wakes is gratifying. It’s good in the same way Frank’s good, that weird blend of violence and mercy. Matt gets off like a good Catholic boy. Should let Lantom know, he ever gets to go back to confession.

               Which he will. Frank’s coming back. He’s coming back. Gotta come back. Wouldn’t just leave him here.

               “Why? Because he likes you so much?” Stick asks.

               No, nothing that sweet, Matt thinks. Merely if Frank wanted him dead, he would be, and in a way more efficient than what amounts to some extent as autoerotic asphyxiation.

               He gasps. Head snapping back upright and immediately bobbing again. Matt tucks his scalp against the headboard as best he can, moaning from the ache in his back and across his shoulders, the burn from his body held in this ridiculous position for so long.

               He curls his spine towards the bed to stretch it, accidentally tugging against the bonds on his wrists. The scabs crack. Blood oozes from the wounds. He doesn’t care. He’ll be alright. He’s had worse than this, survived harder than this. And Frank is coming back. He’s coming.

               Matt twists his neck against the strap and slips, hanging himself, and for a moment, he’s too weak. He can’t pull himself back up. He releases the last little bit of breath in his lungs and lets the silence come over him, lets the blackness catch him before he springs up, rigid, fighting. Frank’s coming back, and he, Matt, is gonna be there when it happens.

               His head falls forward again though, and his eyelids crash close, and Matt is too weak to stop it. He always has been: too weak, that is.

* * *

                The bloody rope snaps at his right, at his left, and then his hands are falling. Circulation returns in a furious itch of pins and needles, creeping through his veins like a swarm of insects.

               Matt can’t move them. He can’t even seem to get his eyes open. His ears are filled with cotton or maybe he’s underwater? He can’t seem to breathe. His head hurts in a distant kind of way, a way that’s detached from his current state.

               Hands slide against his cheeks, fingers digging into his hair. The strap on his neck snaps open and he expects to fall, but he doesn’t. Those hands carry him down and out. They make sure his windpipe is clear, and Matt draws his first wonderful, unimpeded breaths while the ropes on his ankles are cut.

               He curls on his side. The action is instinctual, less a reflection of strength and more a reflection of need. He needs to be on his side. Needs his arms to fold around his chest, to relieve his shoulders, to ease the heat in his back. He’s rolled; he resists, playing chicken with the ever-escalating heartbeat above him. It’s a losing game, but Matt plays anyways, until he’s suddenly dragged into oblivion with cotton scraping against his back as he goes.

               It’s the last thing he feels before the water appears. Before the fingers are rubbing circles into the back of his strained neck, over his crown, and everything crinkles with the sounds of bubbles popping and smells like a kind of citrus that doesn’t exist in nature.

               He turns his head and catches the rumbling of a heartbeat, calmer now. “Frank,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. One of the hands smooths across the crown of his head, sending cool water trickling down his back. The other hand dips low on his shoulder. Thumb hooking into the soft meat beside his vertebrae, fingers curving in front of his chafed neck. Must be Frank. Only Frank could bathe a person he was threatening to choke at the same time.

               Matt releases a sigh, unwinding from the heat of the water and the impossible comfort of Frank’s grip. He turns his head back and presses his face into the exposed underside of Frank’s forearm. Pays extra attention to the way Frank’s tendons curve and veins fold to make room for his cheekbone and jawline. He needs that, the reminder that even men like Frank, unmoving and unshakeable, have soft parts and malleable pieces. That there’s room for skin and sweetness even when the only way they know how to hold a person is to restrain them. When the only way they know how to show affection is when they think no one’s looking.

               Frank is about to move away. Matt can feel the activity in the tendon, the slight release of Frank’s hand against his collarbone. But then Frank’s palm is back, his fingers, and he presses his forearm to Matt’s cheek in the perfect show of force.

* * *

 

               They’re lying on the bed later: fresh sheets, Matt notices. Silk this time. Smelling slightly of their packaging, a scent he notices with a small smile that Frank doesn’t catch, thank God. He doesn’t want to ruin this, not by accident. Not over sheets. Matt’s skin is languishing against Frank’s in such a way that even the bath compete. They’ve never done this. Sure, they’ve fucked enough for Matt to know they fit like two halves of a broken whole, but this is a whole new level of complementary. Matt’s back fits so neatly under Frank’s chest. His skin drinks in the contours of Frank’s muscles, the chilly ziplines of Frank’s scar tissue that match his own. And Frank, a guy who fucks and then fucks off, is all hands and solid limbs. One arm under Matt, the hand again curving up towards Matt’s neck. The other hooked over Matt’s torso. He’s draped a leg over Matt’s, and the strategy is so apparent, so loud: if Matt wants out, he’ll have to fight, and he’s in no condition to fight.

               The smirk sets off a spark that Matt can’t quell. He pays attention to where his arm is in relation to Frank, calculates the strength it’ll take to shuffle their position just so, and then he rolls his head back, let’s Frank catch the side of his face. And God, if Frank’s heart doesn’t hammer away from the sight. A rare rhythm, because the Punisher tries so hard to stay immune to wonder, and that’s what the sound makes Matt think. Wonder. He’s a wonder.

               Matt squirms internally from the thought. He moves his head back down, hiding, focusing on that little spark. The one that needs to break the quiet, the push the limits. The very spark that gets him shackled; the same spark that lets him believe that he’s never left for dead, least of all by Frank.

               He says it again, for the second time, the words that sent Frank running in the first place: “You’re such a good boyfriend, Frank.”

               Frank’s fast; Matt’s faster. He shoves his ribs into the mattress, pinning the one of Frank’s arms. He catches Frank’s other arm by the wrist before it can run away. Then, with just a simple kick of his legs, he has Frank’s leg locked with his. And with Frank grumbling against his back like an old dog, Matt rolls slightly, so Frank’s a little bit on top of him, so Frank’s limbs are stuck, so that if Frank wants to leave, he’ll have to fight.  

               And he does fight. A little. But Matt’s too close to be fooled. He knows what it feels like to fight Frank. This is different. This is new. This is them.

* * *

 Happy reading!


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